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Wednesday, 17 October 2012

5 ways to deal with negetive energy in the workplace

Negative energy can make the workplace environment unpleasantly heavy, and affect employee and organisational productivity. Here are some tips to counter negative energy.

1. Approach the source of energy

It is important to identify and approach the source of negative energy, especially if an individual is creating problems for a larger set of people.

It is important to approach such individuals and find out why such negative energy is getting generated.

Once you have identified the source and approached him, communicate well to understand where the problem lies.

2. Communicate Well

It is not necessary that just one individual is at fault.

You need to make a new employee understand the culture of your organisation. Things work differently in different places and people need this. Keep the communication lines open.

3. Take feedback in a positive spirit

Listen to both the parties who feel the the negative energy and take their feedback positively. It is important to understand here that everyone is hoping to be heard.

The first step towards creating positive energy would be to make everyone feel special, as someone who is adding value to the organisation.

Say something positive to your employees.

4. Get some exercise

Negative energy in organisations happens for various reasons, but one big cause is when growth is slow and employees feel the pinch.

Such negative energy needs to be tackled at two levels — individual and organisational.

5. Create an ecosystem

Organisations can create a formal ecosystem that provides for dealing with negative energy. This could include phone-based or face-to-face third party counselling, meetings conducted on a periodic basis and ensuring that employees have a formal channel of communication.

This allows for sharing fundamental issues that could give rise to negative energy. Other than that, a leader has to be sensitive and perceptive to sense the build-up of such energy to begin with.